Pironi

by David Sedgwick

  It was not until the Brazilian Grand Prix two weeks later that Didier had the opportunity to show what he could really do in a front-line car. The Ligier driver’s ‘flair’ and ‘sheer car control’ during practice left Motorsport’s Alan Henry breathless: ‘To watch the blue Ligier bobbing over the bumps at top speed and its confident driver hurling it through the turn with unshakeable confidence was truly exhilarating.’16 His reward? A place on the front row – his first in F1. In between practice days, the driver enjoyed soaking up the sunshine on Rio’s spectacular Copacabana beach in company with Agnes. Swimming, surfing, relaxing, this was the good life. There was also time to indulge in a spot of illicit hang-gliding along with old friend Depailler, out of sight of Ligier and Alfa Romeo personnel.

  All the evidence pointed to a first Grand Prix victory here in Brazil. To see the number 25 Ligier then struggling to keep up with pole man Jabouille, Laffite’s sister car and Andretti’s Lotus suggested all was not well. Sure enough, after a handful of laps plagued by understeer, the Ligier was in the pits for adjustments to its skirts. Laffite’s race ended just a few laps later. Predictably, before even a quarter of the race had been run, Ligier had thrown away a potentially winning hand.

  Way down the order, Didier re-entered the race with a point to prove; flat out to the end. The Gitanes car started to fly.

  Ten thousand kilometres away in Modena, Italy, as was his habit, Enzo Ferrari watched the race on the small black and white portable television set in his office. The blue and white car was on fire. A motor racing connoisseur who knew a fine vintage when he saw one, Ferrari savoured the spectacle. There was something about this pilot, his style, his panache with just a hint of arrogance, which reminded the old man of champions past. Young Pironi eventually hauled himself up to fourth place. Il Commendatore was impressed. Turning to his assistants, the great man is famously rumoured to have declared: ‘I want Pironi.’ And what the great man wanted, he usually got. Contact between Ferrari and Didier was established soon after. Just two races into the season and Didier it seemed was already planning a future that did not involve his current employers.

  Before the South African Grand Prix, there was time for a three-week holiday hopping around various Caribbean islands with Agnes and a group of friends. Didier enjoyed the holiday tremendously. In his heart, though, he knew the relationship with his childhood sweetheart had run its course. Stood on the verge of a novel and exciting phase of life, new horizons were presenting themselves.

  Around the same time as negotiations began with the legendary Italians, the team from Vichy started to show its potential. A double podium behind Arnoux’s uncatchable Renault in Kyalami signalled the start of a particularly competitive phase for Guy’s cars. After a shaky start to 1980, the JS11/15 was proving itself the equal of the Renaults, Brabhams and Williamses. Notwithstanding, just two days after the South African race, Didier signed a pre-contract agreement for 1981 with Ferrari.

  All the signs suggested that a maiden Grand Prix victory was close. At round five in Zolder it all came together. Sandwiched between Jones and Reutemann’s highly fancied Williamses, Didier and Jacques lined up in second and third place respectively on the Belgian grid: Williams v Ligier, British efficiency versus French flair. A race that had looked set to be a four-way battle for supremacy ended, however, after 100 yards when Ligier number 25 calmly out-braked Jones’ Saudia Leyland car at the first right-hander. It was the first time the young Parisian had led a Grand Prix. Could he hold it together? More to the point, would his machine hold out? Little by little, the Ligier increased its advantage. After 20 laps, the lead stood at around seven seconds. By the end of the race, it had increased to almost 50. Total domination. On his slowing lap, Didier removed his helmet and balaclava, a gesture that would become a Pironi trademark. Boy, was it hot inside that cockpit! ‘Bravo Didier!’ Ligier mechanics held a sign up to greet their man.

  ‘Pironi has not only achieved a great feat, his victory has restored confidence in our team and serenity in a sensitive period,’ enthused a jubilant Guy Ligier. ‘Our results have not corresponded either to our expectations or our ambitions.’

  On the winning driver, the team owner was lavish in his praise: ‘I realised that he had the technical and psychological potential of a winner. It would have just been enough to provide the necessary material, i.e. a competitive car. His victory in Zolder was impeccable in both how he obtained it and in his behaviour. Pironi now belongs to the great legend of F1 and I don’t think it will stop at this.’

  All smiles at Team Ligier, though not according to Imelda. It had long been the pilot’s habit to call home after a race, whereupon mother and son would discuss on and off track developments. Although she disliked motor racing and the dangers it entailed, the matriarch insisted her beloved son keep her up to date with all issues pertaining to his career. Thus, in her memoir Imelda speaks of Ligier’s ‘lukewarm reception’ towards Didier’s victory. It appears that Guy would have much preferred his great friend and number one driver Laffite to be stealing the limelight, not the young man hired to support him. This attitude, she notes, ‘disappointed’ Didier. Whatever, the team held a celebration dinner that evening. The hero of the hour thanked all the right people and shook many hands. Meanwhile, the more extrovert Laffite spent the night cracking jokes:

  ‘Hey Didier, you do realise after I won my first Grand Prix, I didn’t win another for two years!’ grinned Jacques. Didier merely smiled. What a preposterous thought. Weren’t the team on a roll? Entering the European stage of the season, the JS11/15 was arguably the fastest machine on the Grand Prix circuit. The thought of the categorical winner of the Belgian Grand Prix waiting another two years to taste victory seemed absurd …

  Indeed, a first F1 pole positon in the next race at Monaco looked set to be converted into a certain victory until a light rain shower tripped the leader up after 55 laps. Approaching the right-hander which follows Casino Square, Didier had simply lost control of the car and skidded off into the barriers. Human error. ‘Making mistakes at Monaco can be very costly,’ Didier had told Jackie Stewart in an interview earlier that day. The young man kicked himself. The race had been his for the taking. Despite this lapse, he had undeniably announced himself as a star performer. Including Zolder and up to the point of his Monte Carlo retirement, Didier had led the last 127 laps in Grand Prix racing. ‘Didier Pironi,’ wrote Autocar’s Grand Prix correspondent Peter Windsor, ‘has established himself as the fastest man in Formula One.’17

  Was Mr Windsor getting ahead of himself, caught up in the moment? Not if you’d seen the Ligier screaming around the Monte Carlo harbour at 10am on a wet Thursday morning when the pilot had ended the session almost 1.5 seconds faster than the entire field!

  On the face of it, then, summer 1980 should have been a time of serenity, of enjoying his ascension to the top rank of his chosen profession. After all, the young cavalier had just won his first Grand Prix with the promise of more to come; with the JS11/15 going so well, a shot at the world championship seemed a realistic goal. There was also that Ferrari pre-contract agreement filed away in his briefcase. On top of which F1’s hottest talent had just established a lucrative St Tropez-based business selling and renting Lamborghini-powered luxury boats in partnership with the Abbate brothers. And yet the months ahead would prove to be some of the most tumultuous in his 28 years.

  In the early 1980s, Formula 1 would witness a brutal power struggle for control of the sport between Jean-Marie Balestre’s FISA18 and Bernie Ecclestone’s FOCA.19 This duel of egos inevitably spilled over on to the track. By 1980, tensions that had been simmering between the two organisations for a few years finally boiled over. In a series of tit-for-tat moves, FOCA advised its drivers to flout the FISA requirement for all drivers to attend the 45-minute pre-race briefing at the Belgian and Monaco races. As members of FOCA, Ligier’s drivers did not attend the briefings, a show of defiance that resulted in a fine, which Didier, Jacques, Piquet, Jones and others
were advised not to pay. FISA responded by threatening to withdraw drivers’ licences. Subsequently, threats and counter threats were made on both sides. The whole affair started to become rather petty. Things took a turn for the worse when the FISA teams – Ferrari, Renault and Alfa Romeo – retaliated by boycotting the Spanish Grand Prix on 1 June. As a result, the race would subsequently be downgraded to non-championship status.

  Politics aside, following a front-row lockout in Madrid, the French team once more conspired to throw away a race they really should have won. First, Laffite tangled with Reutemann. Later, coasting to victory, Didier was aghast to notice his front right wheel wobbling violently. Much to his astonishment, the wheel simply fell off! Fingers pointed at Ligier. Had the team failed to secure the wheel nuts properly? Outlandish, a beginner’s mistake – some observers thought exactly that.

  That evening and the following day, Didier spent some time with his race engineer Lionel Hublet searching for clues. How could a wheel just drop off? The problem seemed to be ground effect: in the JS11/15 had the team perhaps perfected the dark art a little too well? Such was the level of downforce generated by the Ducarouge-inspired design, the pressure exerted appeared to be causing instability vis-à-vis the car’s Gotti wheel rims, which had cracked under the pressure, leading to the punctures. It was a technical dilemma that would ultimately be the straw that would break the Gitanes’ back.

  Meanwhile F1’s civil war rumbled on. With the threat of a suspended licence, Didier’s plans to drive for BMW at Le Mans were placed in jeopardy. Without a FISA-approved licence, there would be no race. Thus, the day before practice started on 13 June, along with some other rebels, Didier paid the $2,000 fine. Guy Ligier hit the roof. Having forbade his drivers to comply with FISA’s demand, in Le Patron’s mind the gesture equated to nothing short of mutiny. To the team owner, paying up was a move that could only strengthen Balestre’s grip on the sport, a man Ligier considered to be a danger to his own interests and those of his team. In some ways, it need not have mattered. With the BMW M1 never a serious contender, Didier’s Le Mans swansong proved a low-key affair.

  Back in F1, the up and down atmosphere within Ligier would come to a head over the next two races scheduled for France and England. As ever, these were races Ligier were strongly fancied to win, but as ever with the French team, it never quite happened.

  On home ground in France, pressure mounted on the two national teams, yellow and blue. While Renault looked composed, there was little in the way of harmony in the Ligier camp. Stung by what he regarded as Didier’s disloyalty over the fines, Guy Ligier was threatening his number two with suspension from the race. ‘He was really mad,’ recalls Jacques Laffite, ‘completely resolved not to allow Didier to race.’ Significantly, although the team leader had also paid his fine on the same day, Jacques escaped the worst excesses of his boss’s wrath. Writing for the legendary Grand Prix International magazine, Eric Bhat summarised the situation in typically colourful fashion, when he described a Ligier garage with team boss and driver ‘glaring at one another like a couple of fighting cocks’.20

  Guy’s bark however, proved to be worse than his bite. Both blue and white cars lined up at the start, Laffite on pole, Didier slotting behind in third. As Jacques scampered away in the lead, Didier diced with his old rival Arnoux for second place. Whichever way, a home win looked assured. Judging by the size of Laffite’s lead as they flashed across the line at the end of lap one, there might have been more than some truth in the suspicion that the team leader’s engines were, on occasion, that bit more powerful than those of his junior partner. One or two observers certainly believed this to be the case. Still, the blue and white cars were clearly the fastest out there on a sultry afternoon in southern France.

  Yet 90 minutes later it was Alan Jones waving a Union Jack flag from the cockpit of his triumphant Williams – hardly the most diplomatic gesture ever seen in F1.

  Put simply, Ligier had imploded once more, almost literally. Having passed the leader, Jones was getting away. The faster of the two Ligiers, Didier needed to overtake his team leader, which given his inferior rank within the team pecking order, presented something of a conundrum. Oh, what the hell… Flying down the endless Mistral straight, the number 25 car pulled out of the slipstream of car number 26. Going into the ludicrously fast Signes right-hander, the junior driver duly dived down the inside of his senior partner. Jacques, however, turned into the corner as usual …

  Only a last-second correction by the second-placed car averted disaster. The two cars came within inches of touching.

  Didier managed to squeeze through, but with time running out it was too late to challenge Jones; a defeat on home soil. Guy Ligier was not best pleased. ‘You fucked up Jacques’ race!’ stormed a raging bull of a team owner. The good ship Ligier was starting to creak.

  ‘If Pironi had contained Jones better, maybe things would have been different and Laffite would have had an easier run,’ snapped Ligier. More creaking. Worried by tyre wear, Didier had been unable to resist the Australian on this sizzling French afternoon, not that Guy cared. Le Patron needed a scapegoat.

  Things finally came to a head at Brands Hatch for the British Grand Prix two weeks later. An entire weekend if not an entire season summed up in just two words: wheel rims. If the motor racing world had not known about wheel rims before this race, after the chequered flag had fallen (on Jones’ Williams), they knew all about them, and some more.

  From an easy pole position, Didier drove a sensational first lap around the Kent track. Could anyone live with him today? Short answer: no. The JS11/15 was handling superbly. Didier was driving with customary panache, a motor racing D’Artagnan, imperious, dashing and supremely confident. Pironi-Ligier were the class of the field. When asked who would win the race on race morning, ‘Didi Pironi,’ had replied Jackie Stewart without a second’s hesitation. What could possibly go wrong ... ?

  Wheel rims.

  First Didier then Jacques, both Ligier drivers had the sinking feeling that comes with deflating tyres. Leading with something akin to serenity, Didier was forced into the pits after 18 laps. An agonisingly long pit stop, which James Hunt described as a ‘cock-up’, ended his hopes, while the Brands Hatch catch fencing ended those of Jacques, who spun off while fighting a desperate battle to control his own puncture. A sanguine fellow at the best of times, the fury on Jacques’ usually happy face was clear for all to see. Ligier had thrown it all away, again. Back in the race, Didier proceeded to break the lap record for fun. From last to fifth place, a Brands masterclass. When the blue car pulled off the circuit late in the race, this time its left rear tyre shredded, Ligier could be forgiven for thinking the gods were against them on this particular day. Three punctures in a single race! What had started as a mission to avenge defeat on home ground by Williams had ended in all-too-familiar chaos.

  Arriving back at the Ligier pit, Didier found himself assailed by a French media that seemed to be laying the blame for this disastrous day firmly at the door of the drivers, not the cars. Quietly, Didier articulated what he knew, which was not that much: the car had felt superb; he was leading easily, when suddenly the puncture had occurred. No, he had not driven over the kerbs, had not made a mistake of any description whatsoever on either occasion. The accusatory tone irked, more so as he started to suspect the real reason for the calamity.

  What happened next convinced Didier his future lay not with the blue of Ligier, but with the red of Ferrari. As usual, the disappointed young man phoned Boissy after the race.

  ‘Hi mum.’

  ‘Hey, not such a lucky boy today.’

  ‘Well, you know that’s racing mum.’

  It was what Imelda told her son next that confirmed his many misgivings about the team and his future with it.

  ‘You know, Ligier just declared on the radio that if Jacques and you had not banged over the kerbs, you would not have had your punctures.’

  ‘What! Are you certain?’

&nbs
p; ‘Yes, yes. We heard the interview just now.’

  Furious at the way the race had been lost, the pugnacious team boss had simply decided to blame his drivers rather than any shortcomings with their equipment. ‘The machines,’ said Guy only just managing to contain that famous temper, ‘are made to go on the track, not in the meadows!’ Didier was outraged. How could Ligier say such a thing, and on national radio too? When both drivers suspected – correctly – that the reason for the catastrophe lay with an incorrect choice of tyre rim, at best the boss’s declaration seemed presumptuous, at worst downright malicious.

  It was at this moment he decided to quit Ligier. Coincidentally, he had agreed to inform Ferrari of his intentions viz-à-viz 1981 this very weekend. A no-brainer.

  Yet the weekend had all started so well. Le Patron’s 50th birthday had been celebrated with cake adorned with tricolour candles, champagne and good cheer. As Didier, Jacques and Guy laughed and joked, agreement or no agreement, Ferrari had seemed a distant prospect. Besides, 1980 was turning into a nightmare for the Italian team. A glance down the Brands Hatch grid proved as much: Villeneuve and Scheckter stuck in 19th and 23rd places respectively. ‘I do not see why I should change a team that is fighting for pole position and the win with another fighting just to qualify,’ remarked Didier when rumours of a Ferrari switch for ’81 started to circulate around the Brands Hatch paddock. He was, however, bluffing.